Pick of the Month: May 2012

Here is my pick of the resources that I shared on Twitter and in my Pick of the Day in May. Note, for easy reference, ALL the links in my daily Picks are collated monthly on my 2012 Reading List.

1 – Jane Bozarth started the month with some wise advice, as usual, in her Learning Solutions Magazine, Nuts and Bolts column piece: Selling it (1 May)

Shooting ourselves in the footI see this happen all the time with people trying to gain support for implementing new learning approaches and technologies, and I am sure I am often guilty of it myself. What we find cool, others find intimidating. What we find useful, others find threatening. What we find magical, others find scary. And the very benefits we tout are sometimes exactly what others fear.

Training professionals need to recognize that by being business-focused in every aspect of their work. Our work needs to provide value to all of our stakeholders, whether their investment is financial support or time via participation. We need to get away from the widget-based metrics of the past and focus on the impact and value our efforts have on critical business performance.

2 – There were quite a lot of valuable postings this month on the topic of informal learning v formal learning. Harold Jarche’s post on 1 May, told us to to Take off those rose coloured glasses:

The future will not be L&D 2.0 but rather a new organizational learning approach, where learning is integrated into the workflow. Many departments outside L&D are already staking this new ground and building their expertise.

“Sending people to training they don’t need devalues the training and demotivates your highest performers. We ought to be able to exempt some people from certain training. If people don’t need it, they shouldn’t have to attend.”

This little video from weneedacourse, showed a day in the life of a lowly e-learning professional (4 May)

Later in the month (21 May), Ryan Tracey, wrote a post where he said we should start with Informal first.

“No longer is formal training the central offering with informal learning relegated to a support role. On the contrary, when we adopt the informal first mindset, informal learning becomes the central offering.”

“I also back away from the word eLearning. What once held such promise for democratizing learning often led to boring page-turners no one should have to endure. I’d like to see bad top-down training eliminated, flipped, or made experiential. Most eLearning is formal, in that it has a rigidly defined curriculum, and it’s based on the flawed notion that exposure to content is all that’s required for learning.”

In this complimentary report for eLearning Guild members, author Clark Quinn assesses how mobile learning is changing, and recommends strategies to make the most of the technology’s emerging opportunities. He also examines the current trends in mLearning, analyzing usage, perceived barriers, availability, ROI, and other aspects that will help you make the decision of how and when to go mobile.

Their new product, Learnist, works a bit like a Pinterest for learning. Soon anyone (the capability is still invite-only at launch) will be able to compile content pieces onto a board or “learning.” A nifty bookmarklet makes it easy to collect content from other sites.

“I don’t even need to look at Learnist to make my point and ask you this question. Why can we not use Pinterest as a learning tool? Why do we need to copy what’s popular and then spin it as “…for learning”?”

“Therefore, encourage me to learn, but don’t force me. Show me how to improve my performance, but don’t send me to unnecessary training. Empower me to grow wiser, but don’t hold me back. Give me access to social knowledge, but don’t limit me. In the end, we all will benefit.”

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I am Jane Hart.
I am a writer, speaker and
independent workplace learning adviser,
and founder of C4LPT.
My blog was recently rated
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Learning & Development blogs. Find out more about me here.